Fennel – Vegetable – Gratin

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 1 bulb(s) fennel, medium-sized
• 1 bunch of soup vegetables
• 1 onion(s)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup(s) broth (vegetable, veal or poultry)
• Salt
• White pepper, freshly ground
• 200 g cheese (Grana Padano), coarsely grated (or a not too mature Parmesan)
• 1 cup sour cream (or crème legère)

Instructions

Working time approx. 40 minutes; Total time approx. 40 minutes

– my variation of Finocchio gratinato – (as a side dish)

Clean the fennel, trim the fennel greens, halve the bulb, remove the stalk, quarter, and cook in salted water for at least 15 minutes, or until nice and tender. Clean the soup vegetables. Add the celery, carrots, chopped fennel greens, and chopped onion to a pan. Clean the leek and slice them. Finely chop the garlic cloves and crush them with a little salt, and set both aside. Sauté the vegetables in the pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and cook for a good five minutes. Deglaze with stock and continue to simmer. Reduce the heat slightly, add the leek and garlic, and cook for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. Wash and finely chop the parsley and a few of the celery leaves, mix in, and let the vegetables simmer for a little longer. Grease a heatproof dish with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, add the pan-fried vegetables with the slightly reduced stock, and place the soft-cooked fennel on top, breaking up the quarters slightly. The entire dish should be covered with fennel. Alternately add some of the Grana Padano, scatter the sour cream in large dollops, and more cheese, etc. Let it brown slightly in a convection oven with a grill at about 175 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes. (Times depend very much on the particular oven; don’t be too dogmatic about it.) For this, I use the pork fillet from my profile and boiled potatoes. The gratin should be such that the vegetables provide a harmoniously seasoned, juicy base, while the gratinated fennel on top provides a crispy, crusty component and dominates the flavor among the vegetables. The sour cream ensures that the cheese crust isn’t too dry, which can sometimes happen when making finocchio gratinato.